So I am a moral realist in this sense: There is a set of all possible moral Good/Bad statements(S), a set of all possible animals(A), and a set of all possible contexts(C). You could consider the animal as a part of the context but I think this leaves something out that might be important.
For every element of the cartesian product S X A X C there is a function that assigns G or B. This whole mess is kind of something we could call reality. But now what about grey gradients? Is there such a thing.
Anyway, that nails my moral realism. There are some members of the product S X C that would apply for every mammal or every human. Others like pineapple pizza would divide the group. Nevertheless I think there are facts of the matter as long as it is understood that G/B only happens for a living organism.
This also seems consistent with what is called subjective morality. Oddly.
Sorry in advance! I know I am an idiot novice in this philosophy of ethics field.
I have this great reduction when applying Good/Bad judgements. Life has an almost tautological truth that we call valence. This sets up G/B or Pleasure/Pain or advance/retreat. The simplest living things have this.
We must be careful here when talking like I did above. The organism itself behaves on this valence. It is quite another thing for me to 'judge' the organism and context. Just like it is quite another thing for a human to behave morally and then in another act reflect on that behavior or write it down in a book. Failing to keep those two categories straight lets the conversation off the rails.
I agree that there is no standard from nowhere, and that BSB and Thomson are smuggling in their realist assumption.
I'd like to add some speculation on why the notion of "good-fixing kinds" appeals to realists. If someone were to say to me "I need a good hammer" without previous context, I'd automatically assume that they wanted a hammer that was good for driving nails and that would last a long time. If, OTOH, they said "I need a good puddle" without context, I'd be perplexed. I would have to ask what they considered a good puddle. I suspect that BSB and Thomson would have the same reaction and that they, like me, have formed an impression that most people they know would as well. I suspect that you would (and have), tool. We could probably do a study to test this theory, but I think that the results would eventually be mentioned on Colbert along with a pointed comment about the search for a cure for cancer.
I'd explain this (supposed!) fact by saying that the people we know have a default standard for hammers but no default standard for puddles. If no alternate standard is mentioned (or implied), then the default gets used to understand and evaluate the claim.
But different people may have different defaults, and it's an empirical question whether one default or another is common in a given population. I recall one snowy November day where I ducked into a fast food restaurant and ordered tea. What I got was **ice** tea. You may not know this, but in the USA (according to my impression) that's the default for "tea" -- even tho' "common sense" says that tea is a **hot** drink. It's apparently an entire country of people who are terribly confused about tea.
I'm sorry. What was I saying before? I seem to have lost track....
Thanks for sharing that. I agree people would react that way to hammers and puddles that way. I think that this can be so easily explained by mundane features about our psychology that it's bizarre to read so philosophy into it.
Yep, it's a matter explained by historical contingency. We are not aquatic animals and have developed tools like hammers to fit our fingers. If we were huge frogs instead we would clearly have a much richer domain of discourse surrounding puddles and not much use in trying to use our webbed fingers to construct or use hammers.
What I find puzzling is that this isn't an especially subtle or complicated notion. That incidental features of our experiences and ways of living that would definitely differ under different circumstances determine what sorts of things we're familiar with thinking of in terms of being good and bad is one of those things that even I'm comfortably saying is "obvious."
Rather than using the torture of babies, use eating pineapple on pizza. Just a suggestion.
Now I am old and confused but it seems to me that the moral realists are using a different frame of reference and hence a different version of real. I can see how both sides of the argument can be 'good', objectively.
I find it astonishing that BSB found any of those arguments remotely convincing
So I am a moral realist in this sense: There is a set of all possible moral Good/Bad statements(S), a set of all possible animals(A), and a set of all possible contexts(C). You could consider the animal as a part of the context but I think this leaves something out that might be important.
For every element of the cartesian product S X A X C there is a function that assigns G or B. This whole mess is kind of something we could call reality. But now what about grey gradients? Is there such a thing.
Anyway, that nails my moral realism. There are some members of the product S X C that would apply for every mammal or every human. Others like pineapple pizza would divide the group. Nevertheless I think there are facts of the matter as long as it is understood that G/B only happens for a living organism.
This also seems consistent with what is called subjective morality. Oddly.
Sorry in advance! I know I am an idiot novice in this philosophy of ethics field.
I have this great reduction when applying Good/Bad judgements. Life has an almost tautological truth that we call valence. This sets up G/B or Pleasure/Pain or advance/retreat. The simplest living things have this.
We must be careful here when talking like I did above. The organism itself behaves on this valence. It is quite another thing for me to 'judge' the organism and context. Just like it is quite another thing for a human to behave morally and then in another act reflect on that behavior or write it down in a book. Failing to keep those two categories straight lets the conversation off the rails.
I agree that there is no standard from nowhere, and that BSB and Thomson are smuggling in their realist assumption.
I'd like to add some speculation on why the notion of "good-fixing kinds" appeals to realists. If someone were to say to me "I need a good hammer" without previous context, I'd automatically assume that they wanted a hammer that was good for driving nails and that would last a long time. If, OTOH, they said "I need a good puddle" without context, I'd be perplexed. I would have to ask what they considered a good puddle. I suspect that BSB and Thomson would have the same reaction and that they, like me, have formed an impression that most people they know would as well. I suspect that you would (and have), tool. We could probably do a study to test this theory, but I think that the results would eventually be mentioned on Colbert along with a pointed comment about the search for a cure for cancer.
I'd explain this (supposed!) fact by saying that the people we know have a default standard for hammers but no default standard for puddles. If no alternate standard is mentioned (or implied), then the default gets used to understand and evaluate the claim.
But different people may have different defaults, and it's an empirical question whether one default or another is common in a given population. I recall one snowy November day where I ducked into a fast food restaurant and ordered tea. What I got was **ice** tea. You may not know this, but in the USA (according to my impression) that's the default for "tea" -- even tho' "common sense" says that tea is a **hot** drink. It's apparently an entire country of people who are terribly confused about tea.
I'm sorry. What was I saying before? I seem to have lost track....
Thanks for sharing that. I agree people would react that way to hammers and puddles that way. I think that this can be so easily explained by mundane features about our psychology that it's bizarre to read so philosophy into it.
Yep, it's a matter explained by historical contingency. We are not aquatic animals and have developed tools like hammers to fit our fingers. If we were huge frogs instead we would clearly have a much richer domain of discourse surrounding puddles and not much use in trying to use our webbed fingers to construct or use hammers.
What I find puzzling is that this isn't an especially subtle or complicated notion. That incidental features of our experiences and ways of living that would definitely differ under different circumstances determine what sorts of things we're familiar with thinking of in terms of being good and bad is one of those things that even I'm comfortably saying is "obvious."
Rather than using the torture of babies, use eating pineapple on pizza. Just a suggestion.
Now I am old and confused but it seems to me that the moral realists are using a different frame of reference and hence a different version of real. I can see how both sides of the argument can be 'good', objectively.
I actually had not yet read the part where you did use pineapple on pizza. Wow.